Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy VIII / FF8

Final Fantasy XII Ashe
Cactuar Trick
This is a useful technique you can use, in order to gain all of your current GF's abilities, as soon as Balamb Garden becomes mobile.

Considering Balamb Garden is moving, you can head to the large desert on the east side of the world map, where you can fight, and defeat Cactuars. Each defeated Cactuar is worth 20 AP, and they usually come in groups of two or three. This will give you a huge jump start, as they barely give you ANY experience points for defeating them. This means you can learn Ifrit's Str Bonus (a very useful ability), very early. Since you can learn Str Bonus (amoung others), early on, without gaining many levels, you can focus on raising your characters stats higher than you would be able to otherwise.

To get to the Cactuar's desert, you must have of course the moveable Balamb Garden, or the Ragnorok (but the point is to get there early). Now, head south-east from FH (Fishermans Horizon). You should eventually reach a large gap between two continents. One to the north (Esthar), and one to the south (south-south-west is you want to get a bit more technical). Now, on the southern one, there is a big, what looks like a circular piece of land. If your facing that way, you should be able to see a desert, and an island desert as well beside it. On the island with the Cactuar popping out (yes, that is a Cactuar), there's an inlet with a beach. Go up onto the beach shore to land, and get off Balamb Garden. Now, it may seem like your surrounded by mountains, however, almost directly in the middle on an odd slant, there is a pathway through the mountains. If you can't see it, do some camera work, or press R2 to get an aerial view. Now, once you've headed through there, head east along the mountain line, until you reach the desert. However, beware as you might run into the powerful Chimera. Now that you've hit the desert, head towards the island. Although you can't reach it, there is a part of land between there and the island that isn't desert. It's a dark brown type of colour. Head there, and you can fight Cactuar, without having to worry about running into the Chimera!

Now, to kill the Cactuar's off the easy way, have Squall, Irvine, and any other character you want. Have Squall's Speed as high as you can get it, and in low health. Same for the other characters. If you have Inititave, now is a really usful time to use it. Why all this you ask? Well, Cactuars are VERY wuick, and they tend to run away right from the beginning... or attack you, and then run away. So, doing all of the above prevents that. However, some speed is still required on your part.

Now, when you enter a battle, and Squall/Irvine's turn comes, rapidly press Circle, while holding down right. This way, you can't miss a Limit Break, and your not wasting any time. Then, unleash your limit break (Renzokuken [Squall], Shot [Irvine], and Duel [Zell] are the most useful to use), and kill them instantly. Also, if you don't have enough Strength, try junctioning Water to your Elemental Attack for maximum damage. Having a high strength rating is another obvious factor to increase overall damage. Now, hopefully, all Cactuar's will perish to your wrath, and you'll be awarded with tons of AP to learn abilities. Just repeat the process, and you should do just fine, learning a good portion of abilities in one or two battles.

Happy Cactuar hunting!